In these days of billion-dollar bailouts and stimulus bills, we’re often reminded that federal deficit spending has added up to a national debt of more than $11.5 trillion – or $11,500,000,000,000.

But a truer picture of the government’s finances reveals a total liability and unfunded obligation of $56.4 trillion – or $56,400,000,000,000. That’s our country’s future obligation for Medicare and Social Security benefits and other commitments that, at this rate, we can’t afford to keep.

Trillions and trillions of dollars in national debt is hard to get your head around, but that $56.4 trillion figure, which economists call our “federal fiscal hole,” is somewhat easier to understand when you realize it equals $483,000 per American household.

Something has to be done to lower that figure, and the overall debt, or the strength of our nation and the quality of our standard of living will be diminished.

A key mistake would be to blame this year’s $1.7 trillion budget deficit solely on the recession.

Even President Barack Obama, with his bailouts and pork spending, isn’t totally to blame. Neither is President George W. Bush, with his tax cuts and runaway spending and Medicare drug benefit.

The spiraling debt is a function of decades of structural problems with the way our government spends and collects money.

An easy example of the problem can be found in the growth of so-called mandatory spending programs. That’s the money that must be spent every year to cover such things as Medicare and Social Security.

Mandatory spending accounted for just over 30 percent of the federal budget 40 years ago. Now it accounts for more than 60 percent.

A bipartisan group of economic experts is promoting what is often called the Save America’s Future Economy act, which would set up a commission to study the structural problems and suggest concrete ways to bring fiscal responsibility to the budget process.

They argue if such a commission is established in early 2010, it could begin making recommendations that Congress could begin adopting by year’s end. To do its work, the commission would hold town-hall meetings in each Federal Reserve district to seek public comment.

The experts argue that research documenting the debt problem is extensive, and enough real-world ideas acceptable to economists both progressive and conservative exist to make the work doable.

The time to act is now.

We urge Congress to work immediately to address the structural problems in the nation’s budget and put our economic house in order.

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